1. Field of the Disclosure
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a component. In particular, the present invention relates to manufacturing a component using additive layer manufacture.
2. Description of the Related Art
Additive layer manufacturing (ALM) methods using electron beam melting (EBM) may be used to manufacture metallic components by sequential selective melting of thin metal powder layers. According to such a method, a layer of metal powder is deposited onto a surface (or plate), and an electron beam is used to selectively melt the powder layer. The melted material then solidifies so as to form a metallic layer of the desired shape. A further layer of powder is then deposited, and the electron beam is used to selectively melt the further powder layer, which then solidifies to form another metallic layer of the desired shape onto the previous metallic layer. The process is repeated until the final 3D geometry has been built up by selective melting and solidification of multiple layers.
The process can operate directly from a 3D CAD model of the geometry to be manufactured, and may not require any specific tooling to be produced for a particular geometry or component. Accordingly, ALM can be used to generate parts having complex 3D free-form geometry, with short lead times.
Typically, a 3D CAD model of the geometry to be produced is virtually sliced into a series of thin, pseudo 2D, slices equal to the layer thickness generated when a single powder layer is melted (for example by a laser beam) and then solidifies. In the case of EBM, the thin slices of the geometry are then used to generate an electron beam melting path for each layer. This process may be used as part of or along with the present invention.
Any desired path may be used for melting each layer. For example, the contour (or outline) of the layer may first be melted by a beam, and then the bulk of the layer may be melted, for example by hatching, i.e. rastering the beam back and forth along parallel vectors. Once a layer has been completed, the partially manufactured component may be stepped downwards, away from the energy source (for example the electron beam), to allow the next powder layer to be deposited and melted.